


In Pieces

by StAnni



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Experimental Style, F/M, M/M, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 08:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19002157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: Her Eliot, the Eliot her heart belongs to, is made up of several difficult pieces – one wouldn’t think to find in one man.This Eliot, sombre, conscientious Eliot, is secretly her favorite





	In Pieces

Julia looks for any excuse to leave the apartment.

She walks into the kitchen just as Eliot turns away from Quentin, emptying his coffee cup into the basin. The air is thick and she knows that she has just walked into something ramping up to another hushed argument and Quentin watches Eliot, his eyes hard and expectant, ignoring Julia, clearly waiting for something, an answer maybe, a retort to a question that she did not overhear.

And then there is that subtle shake of Quentin’s head, giving up and now, suddenly cognizant of her he smiles but it barely covers up the distress so evident beneath the surface. 

She tries, quietly, to detract “I’m heading out, do you guys want anything from the store?”   
Quentin shrugs lightly where he is standing next to Eliot, “Thanks, I don’t need anything, Jules.” Then Eliot takes a step towards her, away from Quentin, and puts a friendly hand on her shoulder before he leaves “Me too, thanks.” 

She glances at him as he leaves and she tries hard to remember what life was before this broken version of it all. When she glances back at Quentin, taking her purse from the counter, she sees that he is staring at the table –a steadying white knuckled grip on the marble of the counter. His voice is quiet, so quiet, that she has to take a step closer to listen. “I don’t know why it’s so much harder now.”

Things have happened over the last few months, since the monster took her, since they saved the world, since she lost everything.   
And she’s still a monster – but even though she feels a familiar tug at her heart to soothe him, to reel him back in, her hands clench selfishly around the little bit of quiet that remains inside of her. 

Self-preservation trumps the guilt and she offers nothing but a whisper thin lie “I’m sure it will get easier.”

*  
When it is all over, and they are back - fingers cramped and after that first wash of relief has passed - it’s all fucked anyway.

And Josh knows that the weirdest fucking thing of all is how nobody is moving out of that apartment. Like living with each other isn’t equally or even more frightening than the real world outside. 

He’s been trying to convince Margo to go back to Fillory with him but she’s too busy helicoptering Eliot to even register his concern. “Margo, I am telling you, we’re all too far up each other’s assess here, keep this up and nobody’s going to be friends.” 

And speaking of, Eliot and Quentin can’t seem to have a civil conversation without a table being turned over. Julia just seems to avoid interaction of any nature with anyone out of hand – which has Penny on edge, not the greatest thing in the world. And Kady, hedge-witch king of kings, blink in and out of the periphery like some predator that you should probably be keeping closer tabs on.

And then there is Alice. Alice is the only one who weren’t in that apartment to begin with, and who is now, apparently, the topic that should never be discussed.

As he takes a break from the drama brewing upstairs, for a smoke outside, Josh sees her on the sidewalk, hunched against the cold night air in a white jacket – staring up at the checkerboard windows of the apartment building. 

“Hey.” He says, stopping a few feet away from her and she looks at him like she’s embarrassed or something to even be there. 

“Coming up?” He tries but she shakes her head, just slightly “No. I was just passing by.”

Her voice is even but he can hear the strain there. “Alice, hey, you can come up, you know.”.

And when she looks at him her eyes are shuttered, careful. “It’s okay.”

It’s not. And she’s not. Clearly. And he doesn’t blame her.

*

Margo wakes up because she can hear them angst-whispering on the balcony – which apparently is their new place to take their fights now - table free and (they obviously think) out of earshot. 

Eliot really shouldn’t be up this late but other than tying him to the bed, she doesn’t know what to do.

She can hear angry desperation in Quentin’s voice – “Will you just… fucking talk to me?” And then that familiar silence on the other end. 

That’s nothing new - Eliot’s tendency to retreat when he is angry or hurt, ward himself squarely up inside his heart. When he gets like that, you   
might as well pour a glass of wine, wait it out. She doesn’t have the strength of will to listen to Quentin beat himself bloody against that particular wall. And she, honestly, doesn’t have the strength of heart to intervene anymore. She’s just glad Josh isn’t there to roll his eyes.

So she drinks another Ambien and pulls a pillow over her head.

*

Alice watches them from the street.

They orbit each other, talk and break apart and talk again, magnets in opposing fields. It’s so fucking ridiculous, considering what has been sacrificed.

But no doubt that one will flip and they will drive together again with the force of the world – decimating everything in between.   
A few months ago there was nothing that could have prepared her - she knows that. She accepts that. She has to, because she was there - unwittingly fueling on the change - like everyone else. She was distracted by that hope against hope as her mind raced and her heart burnt through her chest. Save Eliot, save Eliot, save Eliot. 

She didn’t see the world move like the shattered reality of a kaleidoscope, out of frame and leaving her behind. Alice, the oblivious.

The same day, Eliot was breathing through a tube in the hospital room – recovering after surgery. She was there too, they were all there – bruised but victorious in the silent waiting room. Alice, the involved.

The doctor or nurse or whatever she was came out and gave them all good news – she doesn’t remember the words exactly – and then Quentin pressed up and away from her, following Margo to Eliot’s room.

She sat there waiting like a ghost, for her lover to return. And when he did, she didn’t even realise that he didn’t belong to her anymore.

Time flicked a switch and she was a remnant. Alice, the fool.

*

Julia is out somewhere, didn’t bother to tell him where she went, didn’t bother to tell him when she’d be back. He woke up on the couch when Quentin followed Eliot out onto the balcony and knew he wasn’t going to get much sleep after that. Fucking idiots.

Penny waits as the coffee drips noisily, staring at the broken cup on the floor. Apparently Quentin could care less about mending the cups that he throws around the room himself.

Eliot walks in from the balcony – leaving Quentin behind and Penny wishes he had the energy to transport out of there, but his need for coffee is real. 

“Hey.” Eliot says, distracted and going into the fridge. Penny nods with a gruff sound and Eliot glances at him. “Fuck, did we wake you?” 

It’s in him to be direct. But it’s also in him to not engage. So he shrugs, picks up his cup to sip. “It’s fine.”  
To his benefit, Eliot is not the oversharing type and he pours himself some chilled vodka as Penny tries to sip the scalding hot coffee as fast as he can. 

“Let me know if you’re going to Fillory,” Eliot says too evenly and thus shady as fuck “I’d like to hitch a ride.”

“I thought you weren’t king anymore.” Penny says, just slightly intrigued by the subversion, “Planning a coup?”

Eliot smirks and doesn’t say anything. Penny knows that if Eliot is asking him for a lift to Fillory himself, Margo is not in on the ride. And judging by the face that Quentin stands stress-smoking on the balcony, he is sure as fuck not in on it either.

But it’s not his problem, so.

“Sure, I’ll let you know.”

*

Margo has felt Eliot fall so many times.

She had heard the conversation when he first came back from the hospital, Quentin quietly, gently explaining that he was still with Alice, couldn’t just leave her, wouldn’t just do that to her and Eliot didn’t say a word, at first, and then offered a light “I get it.” 

Holy fuck, she used to be so in love with him. Still was, if she was honest with herself.   
He still had the ability to flutter up her stomach, to make her feel weightless and grounded at the same time. So she had to put up her own walls over time too. And after the first time, years ago, when he pushed her down onto his bed she had felt the world give out underneath her - after that, after the mindless chit chat in the morning, the sinking realisation that it really had not meant anything at all – she organised her shit – set up her own wards, steeled herself to the teeth. 

She knows that Eliot, even before his recent change, even for all his loveliness, spark and elation, could be undeniably obliterating in his unintentional cruelty. 

So she listens to Quentin argue a night or so later, “No, El, Please…not like this.” 

And she can hear his answer, not cold but not warm anymore either, “Let’s just give it some time, Q.”

She knew. She called it - saw the state of it from the start. She saw it in the raw wounded look in Eliot’s eyes after Quentin left the hospital “He chose her.” She saw his doubt after Quentin came back to the door, pressed inside and kissed Eliot, in front of everyone. She saw it in Eliot’s eyes, the lingering caution that measured every word, every gesture.

She saw it in the small, almost imperceptible way that Eliot drew back, so slowly that Quentin didn’t notice until it was too late, until there was nothing left to trap anymore. Got it give it to Eliot, guy knows how to commit a smooth but fuck-painful extraction. 

Like ripping out a liver while you look away.

She used to think it was some kind of remnant battle magic curse – like a ticking time bomb, something to solve. She made a show of it too – trying to figure it out. Blind to reality. Blind to the fact that this was just a year, a fucked-up normal year.

*

Back then Alice knew that she was being too quiet about the whole thing. But she also knew that he was watching her, waiting for the right time to tell her. 

And on top of that, she knew that there was nothing she could say to change his mind. That was a fact. No matter what her heart told her to do, screaming and slamming with balled fists. 

The night he finally did it was Julia’s birthday and, because of-fucking-course, he actually managed to catch her off guard. 

They had all gone to some club she didn’t expect to be nice, and then it actually was nice. It actually felt close to fun, a new type of fun she hadn’t had the opportunity to try. She could relax and it wasn’t just because Eliot wasn’t there and Margo wasn’t there. It was because Josh was funny and Quentin convinced Julia to have a shot with them. 

And then afterwards Quentin pulled the car over on the way back, just a few blocks from her apartment. She was so stupidly lulled that she looked over at him with a smile. A fucking smile.

“Alice. ..”he started and he stopped and suddenly the car filled up with ice water “I am so, so sorry.”  
When she was a kid she saw a news report and there were people tipping a statue over, letting it shatter to the ground. That was what Quentin did right there. And he was apologising for it while he was doing it.

So she ripped away – violently – teeth and claws. Her voice so fucking weak and growling “You’re a fucking liar, Quentin. You’re a fucking monster.”

Although she knew, even then, that it wasn’t his fault. 

She knew that there really wasn’t anyone to blame. Hearts break. 

But the words took the sting away, at least a little bit – the way that his face crumpled, the guilt in him – it felt like fodder for the rush of flames rising within her. “I fucking hate you.”

*

Eliot stands forever outside the door of Alice’s apartment. It feels like forever.

Penny sighs and sits down, right there, in the hallway. “Can we get a fucking move on, man?” he asks. He’s worried about missing Julia again. He’s worried about going another four days without talking to her.

Eliot doesn’t look back at him but nods, quietly and then lifts his hand in a firm slow knock. It’s a couple of seconds and then he tries again and Penny wishes that he could just teleport the fuck back to the apartment again, just for a look. She might drop by just to get a jacket or something – she may not even see Josh, get his message to stay and wait for him.

But then Alice opens and if he’s never seen surprise and shock and absolute hate combined in one expression, he’s seen it now. 

She doesn’t say anything and looks over at him on the floor right away, then back at Eliot, who takes, to his credit, a respectful step back. “Can we talk?” Eliot asks and Alice shakes her head immediately, like, shutting that shit down right away. “No. I don’t want to talk to you. To any of you.”

With the last word she glances pointedly at Penny, and what the fuck man, like he wants to talk to her.

Eliot stares at the door that she has slammed in his face and he looks wrecked, devastated. “What was the plan here, dude?” Penny asks, because he has to know. Was Eliot here to what, offer Quentin back to Alice? What was the best-case-scenario he was hoping for here?

“I just wanted to… say sorry.” Eliot says before he turns to look at Penny – expression even, typical Eliot. And whatever, side-trip over, now he can dump Eliot in Fillory and get back to his girlfriend, if she is still even his girlfriend.

*

Julia finds Josh standing in front of the fridge - buck-naked with a fist full of baby carrots.

She clears her throat and he turns around and smiles, unphased, clearly sleeping with Margo has vastly warped his confidence. “Oh hey, before you disappear again, Penny said if you come back that you should wait for him.”

Her heckles raise at that, but not without guilt - it’s not that she doesn’t want to be around him, it’s just that she doesn’t particularly want to be around anybody.

“Where’d he go?” She asks, because she has to ask something.

“He gave Eliot a ride to Fillory, but apparently they had to make a stop somewhere before ” he says, going back to the fridge.   
And then, almost as an afterthought, “Oh and they broke up, Q and Eliot. You know, in case it interests you.”

That does feel like shit.  
In fact it takes the breath right out of her. She’s only been gone a couple of days.

“Is he here? Q?” She asks and Josh glances at her, she doesn’t miss the surprise in his eyes at her asking about the welfare of someone else. 

“Um, downstairs. In the bar.”

*

A week after the break-up Alice stopped her car in Norfolk. 

It was not what she expected - teeming with hedges but no real magicians. And the magic itself, it was wild – a bit heady and out of control. It didn’t feel great, but at least it was something, anything other else to focus on.

There were messages, lots of them. From Quentin – apology after apology. From her mom – admonishment after admonishment.   
And then she threw her phone away.

The last person she expected to see blocking her path while she was walking out of the convenience store was Margo – and she’d never wished for the ability to turn tampons into bullets more than that moment.

“Get the fuck out of my way” she bit out, by way of greeting and Margo just raised her eyebrows, amused but backing the fuck off. “Look, crazy,” she said, “I’m not here to fight.” 

And she wasn’t there to fight. She was there to convince Alice to come back – said it was wrong without all of them in one place, that things were fucked and they had to figure out, together, how to get back on track. She thought for sure it was some kind of spell, some curse, some new quest.

She was convincing.

And Alice was stupid. Stupid enough to move back, to hope. For nothing,

When Eliot stands outside of her door she feels all the emotional wards that she has built from scratch crack right through. “Can we talk?” He asks and his voice is level – but also thick, like he’s trying. 

For some reason Penny is sitting in the hallway behind him. Probably to chauffeur his lazy, selfish ass around.

She was there. And he took Quentin away. And then she came back, she helped save his life, risked her own. And he, again, took Quentin away. 

Sure she’s not a saint. She fucked up too – but she was never anything more than a paper apology person to him. She was never significant enough to merit stopping in the fucking act. 

She hears him tell Penny that he wanted to apologize and she feels like ripping the door from the fucking hinges. She feels like shaking the entire block to rubble. 

She’s had enough of apologies.

*

Quentin is in the bar. He’s not drunk but he’s not not drunk.

Julia smiles as she sits down next to him, and he glances at her and then nods, as if he has decided to allow her to stay. “Hey” he says, voice gravelly and seriously, he’s a train wreck – how did she miss this?

The thing that scares her about Quentin is also the thing she loves most about him – his stripped to the core honesty of him. The way that he can’t hold a poker face and the way that he blurts out the truth as if he’s never heard of tact, or self-preservation.

He is like a new born baby every single day.

“Eliot left.” He says, sighing, looking at her and she nods, swallowing against the shameful lump in her throat. “Yeah, Josh…said.” 

It is a quiet between them that she felt last when she didn’t get into Brakebills and she was angry, and distant. Except, this time she feels it from the other side.

“I just…I know it wasn’t a mistake.” Quentin says, heartbreakingly confident, and then the crack – and he runs his hands through his hair, fingers shaking slightly “So I don’t know…what I did this time…to fuck it up.”

If she maybe paid attention more, she’d know what to say. 

He goes on “I don’t know, maybe Margo was right back when, when she said it was a curse.”

Julia sighs, sitting back – she hated the fact that Margo came up with that insane bullshit theory. She even considered that maybe the fairy eye had finally fried Margo’s brain. 

“It’s not a curse, Q. It’s…it’s not…a curse and it’s not you…and it’s not Eliot…” And there is no easy way to say it, so maybe it’s good that she’s been removed, maybe she can be the cold bitch. “It’s just that…sometimes things fuck up…all on its own.”  
Quentin is quiet. This time the quiet feels, maybe, five percent better. Breathable. 

“Like you and Penny?” He ventures and she can tell that he is being careful. It’s sad. He shouldn’t have to be careful. But she gets why.

“No.” She concedes, thinking about the fact that he must be back at the apartment now. He must know that she didn't stay. Again. 

“That’s just on me.”

*

Margo finds Eliot in the throne room, drunk on his old chair, much to the dismay of Pick. 

“Bambi.” He smiles and motions her closer to sit on his lap. Which she does, with a sigh, hooking her arm around his shoulders and rolling her eyes. “Are we lamenting?” She asks, curling her fingers in his hair as he leans back, eyes closed in pleasure. “I just thought…I’d rather be a happy drunk alone in Fillory than be an unhappy undrunk unalone on Earth.”

She smiles as she pinches his ear “Flawless reasoning.” And leans with her forehead against his “So tell me what the actual fuck?”

He sighs, opening his eyes, and she can see that he is not nearly as drunk as he is pretending, or hoping, to be.

“I didn’t think it through.” He says “The guilt of it, the effect of these…whims. What it would do to him. Or her. And then...just nothing worked anymore.”

Her Eliot, the Eliot her heart belongs to, is made up of several difficult pieces – one wouldn’t think to find in one man.

This Eliot, sombre, conscientious Eliot, is secretly her favorite.

“So the timing was off…” She kisses his eyelids, softly, soothingly “So maybe, one day, you get to try again.”  
He smirks and she can feel the slump of his shoulders – the despair. Her heart aches like it’s been punched. 

“Maybe” He says.

“Maybe.” She agrees, holding just a little tighter.


End file.
